Some Texas Republicans were politically strong-armed into supporting impeachment, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was recently acquitted of all charges in the Senate impeachment trial and reinstated as attorney general, told Breitbart News Daily on Friday.
“Hey, look, I was there for ten years; I know how it works. And, unfortunately, it’s gotten much, much worse over the more than decade I’ve been out of there,” Paxton, who previously served in the Texas House of Representatives, said during his appearance on the show.
“And what happens now is 150 House members — in order to become speaker, which controls every aspect of the House, what legislation gets on the floor, who’s [on] what committee, who’s what committee chair … the speaker controls most of the money that goes to members. And that vote has been smartly controlled by the Democrats now for over a decade,” he said, explaining the inner workings of the chamber.
Paxton explained that speakership takes 76 votes, and “obviously,” the Republican of choice will vote for himself.
“And what the Democrats do is a block vote; there’s 65 of them. They agree among themselves who they’re going to pick, and they usually pick, obviously, the Republican that will do the most for them,” he said, explaining how that Republican then garners GOP allies who will stick with him, almost using good committee assignments as an incentive.
“That’s how it’s done. So the deal is usually cut,” he said.
Paxton said he believes getting rid of him was one of the agreements behind closed doors.
“And one of the things that I believe got offered to the House Democrats was…Biden was sick of our lawsuits; we had 48 of them going. And they agreed after I won my election that this was the only way to get rid of me. They tried so many other ways, and this is how it was done,” he said, explaining that the “so-called Republicans are pressured by the speaker.”
“One of the House investigating members — there’s only five total — he didn’t even know what the investigation was for until the day of he was told. And this is a guy that was carrying some of my bills. This is a Republican that told me I was the best attorney general in the country, and he was forced to vote to impeach me without even knowing what the charges were and didn’t know about the investigation until that day. And then, of course, three days later, I was out of office on my own with no resources,” Paxton said.
When asked what others did to force this Republican to do it, he said they essentially threatened his career.
“They told him that his career would be over, that he … wouldn’t have financial resources, his committees would be…he would be demoted from committees, that basically, he’d never get anything done,” Paxton explained.
“And then, of course, when the speaker votes for something, it’s a pretty unusual vote for the speaker to vote for anything. There’s thousands of bills, thousands of votes that come up. The speaker rarely votes for anything. Unless he wants to send the message, ‘You have to vote with me,'” he said, noting that the speaker “cast his vote right away” on the impeachment.
Some of the Republicans were starting to change their minds as they heard State Rep. John Smithee, whom Paxton said “did a good job of outlining the lack of due process to vote.”
Because of that, some were “starting to change their mind because they didn’t know much about this,” he continued.
“Remember, they only got like, a couple days’ notice. And they never got to hear any evidence. They never got to hear any testimony. There were no witnesses sworn in. Nothing. Nothing. No law was followed. And they were turning John Smithee…he was trying to vote for the Republicans my way,” he said, adding that some Republican House members were on the floor “telling people they had to vote with the speaker or they were in trouble.”
LISTEN to the entire interview below:
Breitbart · AG Ken Paxton – September 22, 2023Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
